Tuesday 13 August 2019

New £130m deal inked for 11 waste plastic to hydrogen facilities

A new agreement to develop 11 facilities that will use plastic waste for hydrogen production in the UK has been signed.

The £130 million deal between Peel Environmental, Waste2Tricity and PowerHouse Energy follows the announcement of the proposed “first of its kind” facility in the UK to be built in Cheshire.

The facilities will use an advanced thermal treatment technology to produce hydrogen from unrecyclable plastics – the clean source can then be used to power buses and heavy goods vehicles before being rolled out to hydrogen cars.

Almost 1.2 million tonnes of waste plastics are sent to landfill every year - the partnership, which is due to submit a planning application for the first site in the coming weeks, hopes to help support in diverting them.

Myles Kitcher from Peel Environmental, part of Peel L&P, said: “Hydrogen is increasingly being seen as a vital part of our journey to zero carbon. This deal could be transformational in delivering a UK first technology that can generate local sources of hydrogen but also provide a solution to plastic waste. As a business we’re looking at solutions for all plastics with a vision for these facilities to sit alongside recycling and recovery.

“We’re pioneering this solution in the North West but local authorities across the country could benefit from a more sustainable way to treat waste plastic, whilst also creating a local source of low carbon transport fuel which could help them meet their climate change targets.”